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Bookmark this pageBoat People (1982)
Director: Ann Hui
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Hui's impressive film sets out to explain why so many Vietnamese (mostly of Chinese descent) took to the South China Sea as refugees in the late 1970s. A Japanese photo-journalist covers the 'liberation' of Danang in 1975 and returns to report on 'New Vietnam' three years later. Initially a pawn of the propaganda bureau, he gradually realises the truth about forced labour camps, poverty and corruption, not to mention the generational in-fighting within the communist party. On first release it was taken as a pessimistic prophecy of Hong Kong's likely fate after the 1997 reversion to China's sovereignty - a reading it only half invites. The major weakness is the central casting: Lam is hopelessly unconvincing as both a Japanese and a professional photographer.Author: TR
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